The Dream Trap

Tianna Bradley had arrived once more in the same dream that she had had for several days. Everything was exactly the same as the past several times she had visited the dream. 

She stood in the hallway of an apartment, a single yellow bulb shining on a dark green carpet. There were no pictures on the wall, no decorations, but there were three doors. The two doors on the right were open, showing a small guest bedroom and a bathroom respectively. The door on the left, however, was shut, and as usual, she could not open it. 

The closed door bothered her. She suspected that, if she could open it, she would understand why she kept having this dream. But for whatever reason, it was locked. 

Tianna moved down the hall and entered the living room where there were a sofa, a coffee table, and a tv hanging on the wall. She looked over at the table for two in the small dining room, and walking into the kitchen, she saw everything was clean and orderly. She sighed, wondering for the hundredth time why she returned to this dream. Perhaps there was no significance about it, an odd coincidence with no real meaning. 

She wandered back to living room and jumped back a bit. There was a bowl of popcorn on the coffee table. Then she heard a dim noise, and at first she could not distinguish what it was. She turned slowly around and saw with surprise that the tv was on and playing an episode from her favorite sitcom, Nothing Left. 

Though she gazed at the tv, she was not paying attention; instead, she wondered why there were new details in her dreams. She turned and walked to the kitchen, which was off of the living room and next to the front door. She peered in to the unlit kitchen, but everything she could see was orderly. There were no new details.

Then there was a knock on the front door, and she jumped back. She stood still, her eyes on the door, horrified. She knew that, once she opened it, she would finally understand the dream - but she also knew she did not want to understand it anymore. It would be preferable to return to the dream constantly without ever knowing the meaning of it. But there was a second knock, followed by a man’s voice. 

“Mrs. Bradley? Mrs. Bradley?”

“Go away,” she shouted.

“You sent for me.”

Tianna felt compelled to open the door, though she could not explain why. A short, thin, balding man in a brown business suit entered, and she stepped quickly away from him. 

“Hello, Mrs. Bradley,” he said. 

“Who are you?” she demanded.

Like people often do in dreams, he did not have the type of reaction she would have expected. 

“You know who I am,” he answered calmly. “My name is Ross Houston.”

“Get out,” she whispered. 

“I have the results of my investigation.” He produced a black folder in his hand which he had not been holding but which appeared out of thin air, in his hand, and he offered it to her. 

She began to cry. “I don’t want to know.”

“But it’s good news,” he persisted. “Your husband hasn’t been cheating on you.”

“You’re lying,” she shouted. 

“Why should I lie to you?” he asked. “I’m not telling you what I want to hear. It’s the truth. You hired me to track him and I did. He’s perfectly faithful to you.”

She took the fold from him and flung it against the wall. “He’s cheating on me,” she insisted tearfully. “Just like I cheated on him.”

Nothing she had said or done hadchanged the impassive expression on his face. 

“Do you wish he had cheated on you?” he asked. “Would you prefer it if he had? Would it make it easier to think he did to justify killing him?”

She covered her ears and screamed, then knelt on the floor and sobbed. When her sobs had slowed down, Ross Houston continued talking.

“What are you going to do now?” he asked. “Are you going to take a gun to your husband’s head and shoot him?”

“No!”

He stepped closer until he was less than a foot away, his still impassive face commanding her attention. She was still kneeling on the floor, and she looked up at him, fearful of what he might say next.

“You’ve cheated on your husband,” he repeated. “Yet you suspect him of doing the same thing. A little hypocritical, isn’t it?”

She quivered. 

“You went to the room and shot him.”

“I haven’t done anything,” she retorted, her obstinacy temporarily overcoming her fright. 

“Look in your bedroom,” said Mr. Houston.

“What room?” But she knew which one he meant.

“Go to your bedroom.”

“What’s the point?” she cried. “It’s always locked. I can never open it.”

“Open it.”

Tianna ran down the hallway. If Mr. Houston wanted proof it wouldn’t open, she would show him. But when she twisted the doorknob, the door gave way, and in her astonishment, she flew to the floor, landing on her hands and knees. 

For a moment, she refused to look up. She was certain that whatever she saw in there was terrible, and when she finally lifted her head, she saw a man lying on the floor, his feet facing her. She crawled slowly to the man’s side and recognized him as her husband. But his hair and face were obscured by inordinate amounts of blood oozing from the left side of her head. 

“I shot him,” she whispered. 

And the dream ended. 

Tianna saw darkness. Or rather, her eyes were closed. She felt a mattress under her body, her hands clasping nervously at the blanket that lay on top of her. She slowly opened her eyes and encountered a plain wall. Then she noticed a broad window through which the sun was shining, and a man was silhouetted against the daylight. Her eyes adjusted to the light, and she saw a man with receding blond hair and a wide face sitting on a chair. He was studying her closely. 

“Mrs. Bradley?” He knew who she was, but he needed to know that she knew too.

“Yes,” she answered, simply. “I’m Mrs. Bradley. And you are - “

“Detective Leo Lynch. I’m afraid I got a little creative with you. The nurse said that you’ve been in half a dream state. I started walking you through the night that, well . . .” He paused tactfully. “You seemed to be in denial, or at least fighting, with the truth of what you did.”

“I don’t remember anything after I shot my husband,” she replied, and she spoke in such an ordinary tone of voice that the detective raised his eyebrows. “I feel as if I’d been dreaming about the night I killed him many times, and I couldn’t get out of the nightmare. But you helped me, so thank you.”

“Anytime, Mrs. Bradley. Well, if you’re willing to admit your guilt, we should get through the trial pretty quickly. May I ask if this was pre-planned, the murder?”

“No. Mr. Houston - I think you already know who he is? - he told me that my husband had been entirely faithful to me. If ever anyone had lost their mind, I certainly did at that moment. I wanted him to be cheating on me. It would’ve been easier to live with myself if I knew he was guilty too.”

“Why kill him?” he asked curiously. “Why not keep your affair a secret?”

“The man I was cheating with wanted to tell my husband about our affair, and that’s when I realized I wanted my husband more than Rowan.”

“Rowan?” 

“The man I was having an affair with, Rowan Summers. I knew if I cut it off with him he would tell my husband out of spite. I’d lose my husband completely.” She sighed. “The best way to put it is, I preferred to kill my husband than be rejected by him.”

“You have a fear of rejection?” 

“My therapist told me years ago that I had a pathological fear of rejection as well as rapid attachment disorder. I avoid rejection and attach myself much too quickly to others.”

Leo Lynch stood up. “Thank you, Mrs. Bradley. I’ll contact you if I have any further questions.”

“Thank you,” she murmured. 

When he was gone, she put her head back and closed her eyes. It was then that she understood the truth that was more horrible than admitting to murder - in her mind, she would always be in her apartment, and she would always see her husband’s bloodied body.